Library Plans “Read-Out” of Famous Banned Books

1-3 p.m., Tuesday, Oct. 2 McDermott Suite Eugene McDermott Library

Most readers have opened the pages of a book that at one time had been banned or challenged - from the seemingly harmless Huckleberry Finn and Harry Potter to the bawdy Fanny Hill and the coming-of-age A Separate Peace.

As a part of the American Library Association’s 30th Anniversary Banned Books Week, Eugene McDermott Library at The University of Texas at Dallas has organized readings of notable banned or challenged books by faculty, administrators and students. The “Banned Books Read-Out” of passages and excerpts is free to the public and will take place from 1-3 p.m., Tuesday, Oct. 2 in the McDermott Suite, 4th floor of McDermott Library.

“Censorship has always been an important issue for libraries and reading from several of these formerly banned and contested books will remind us of our rights based on the First and Fourteenth Amendments,” said Director of Libraries Ellen Safley. “We are most pleased by the enthusiastic support from our faculty and administration for volunteering to participate in this inaugural reading.”

Books have been banned (removed from access) and challenged (targeted for removal in libraries and school reading lists) because some people have objected to them for what they perceive as graphic sex, adultery, premarital sex, obscenity, inappropriate themes for age groups, pedophilia, homosexuality, alcohol abuse, physical abuse, prostitution, excessive violence, gore, anti-government, discrimination against women and minorities, derogatory language, anthropomorphism, religious blasphemy and so forth.